Research & Innovation

Great Research Pairs With Great Pediatrics

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC has long been known for superior pediatric care. And over the past decade, Children’s has been building a prominent reputation in the landscape of pediatric research.

This year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognized the hospital’s stature by selecting Children’s Hospital as a Center of Excellence for training the nation’s future pediatric researchers — one of only 20 such NIH-funded centers nationwide.

These NIH Centers of Excellence — known as Child Health Research Centers (CHRC) — serve as hubs for training young scientists who are performing cutting-edge laboratory research into pediatric diseases such as cystic fibrosis, cancer and diabetes.

Children’s will establish its CHRC though a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Established physician-scientists in Children’s CHRC will mentor and train up to four physicians who are completing fellowships or new faculty members who are conducting laboratory research into the molecular basis of pediatric diseases.

Children’s center will be led by principal investigator David H. Perlmutter, MD, physician-in-chief and scientific director at Children’s and the Vira I. Heinz Professor of Pediatrics and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

“This program will serve as a cornerstone of Children’s efforts to recruit to Pittsburgh the world’s best and brightest scientists who have an interest in research that may lead to better treatments and potential cures for a variety of devastating pediatric diseases,” Dr. Perlmutter says. “With this Center of Excellence grant, the NIH is recognizing the significant achievements scientists at Children’s and the University of Pittsburgh have made to pediatric research and our potential for future advancements.”

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC is one of the fastest growing pediatric research programs in the country. A few numbers bear this out. In the last 20 years, research funding to Children’s from the NIH has increased from less than $4 million to well over $20 million in 2006 – with more than half that increase coming since 2001. In that same 2001-06 period, total research funding grew from $20 million to $35.7 million. That growth is particularly impressive in light of tightening NIH budgets during this same period.

In addition, the growth at Children’s is steady. Children’s Hospital led the field in the 2000–2005 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of NIH funding to children’s hospitals and departments of pediatrics.

As shown in the chart above, Children’s 2000–2005 CAGR is nearly 20 percent, while the average CAGR for all children’s hospitals in the top 30 was roughly 11 percent. Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC was one of only three hospitals in that period recording CAGR over 15 percent.

This growth continues, with Children’s researchers being awarded 18 new grants from the NIH in fiscal year 2007.

Children’s Hospital’s phenomenal research growth is always complemented by the hospital’s constant expansion and refinement of the quality of our medical care, Dr. Perlmutter says.

“There is no either/or. We are never complacent about how we practice medicine — and we are never complacent about expanding medical and scientific knowledge. We can be great at providing pediatric medicine and still do great research.”

Children’s Innovation Awards Fund Research at the Edge

Research projects at Children’s Hospital attract an unprecedented level of funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). But Children’s also is funding research projects long before they reach the stage of receiving NIH funding.

Children’s Scientific Program has launched the Innovation Awards initiative to help stimulate pediatric investigators’ highly innovative basic and clinical research projects — projects deemed to be in too early a stage for NIH funding. The Scientific Program looks for high-impact research that likely will lead to changes in the field or to changes in clinical practice. Essential to all these studies is multidisciplinary, collaborative research with other programs at Children’s Hospital, UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh.

The first two recipients of Innovation Awards are Edward Prochownik, MD, PhD, Children’s Paul C. Gaffney Professor of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, and Stephen Pak, PhD, of Children’s Newborn Division. Each will receive $150,000 a year for two years.